If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

The Get Along Gang

Although we already have a thread about the Region 1 DVD release of DiC's take on the above, The Shadow (Praise Be Unto Him) has allowed the creation of this general purpose thread for all things Get Along.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells.

I had a Get Along Gang book-on-tape, but my most vivid memory is that of me begging my mom to buy me a little figurine of Dotty in the checkout aisle of the grocery store. I think she caved, but I don't really remember? Neither of those things survived the dreaded adolescent purge.

The Get Along Gang has great memories for me. I started my long association with Jean Chalopin and Andy Heyward as an independent writer for their DIC Entertainment, penning episodes of THE LITTLES. Jean decided to bring me on staff in 1981 and my first position was a Assistant Story Editor for THE CARE BEARS. In those early days DIC's small offices were over a beauty shop in Studio City. The were small and cramped. I remember sometimes we had to turn sideways as we passed each other in the narrow hallways. I couldn't have cared less. They were walking distance from my condo and I was now a staff television writer -- heady stuff for someone that moved to L.A. from Chicago without a television writing credit to his name. DIC, of course, would go on to become the largest independent producer of animated series in the world. Within a month I was promoted to Story Editor. After we finished THE CARE BEARS I was assigned to write for THE GET ALONG GANG. For a young writer this was a great opportunity because the series ran on CBS. Acquiring network writing credits was -- and is -- important in a writers' career.

I loved this gentle series. Dotty, Woolma, Bingo and all the other were kind and gentle characters, sort of like THE CARE BEARS in nature. In ensuing years I'd write harder edged series like M.A.S.K., TMNT and BOTSMASTER. But I did enjoy the 'kinder, gentler' characters of THE GET ALONG GANG.

Writing on the series allowed me to meet and learn from great writers like Marc Scott Zicree and Larry Parr and DIC under Jen Chalopin took me under his wing and taught me much of what I know about the writing of children's entertainment. I was fortunate to work with DIC's iconic Director of Creative Affairs Lori Anderson. How she managed to put up with us crazy writers is beyond me, but she was a huge influence on my career. Now, over thirty years later, Jean, Lori and I are still dear friends and we Skype and e-mail each other on a regular basis.

But for me one of the most important things was meeting the guy that did the music for THE GET ALONG GANG. He was this bombastic, effusive, larger-than-live Israeli fellow that attended our Tuesday morning creative meetings at DIC. I think it's safe to say that Haim Saban and I hit it off from day one. Years later he would call upon me to write and create the original series bible for his MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS. By that point in time I'd already written three or four hundred episodes of television. Yet working on MMPR made everything else before it pale by comparison, opening unimaginable doors for me. But that's another story, for another time. Like Jean and Lori, Haim and I have remained friends and I was pleased to have met with him this November at his breathtaking Los Angeles offices. They're a long way from the cramped conference room we used to have those creative meetings in at DIC, but Haim's just as charming as he was in those days and it's nice to know he still remembers and is gracious to a writer that started out working with him on that little CBS series so many years ago.

Altogether, and for all of those reasons, THE GET ALONG GANG has a special place in this writer's heart and I'm delighted to see it being re-released.

Ya know, I always wondered who sang the theme to this show. The fellow undoubtedly did many other themes... Heathcliffe, Pole Position, Saturday Supercade.... it's all the same guy. Anyone know his name?? I can't seem to find out exactly who it is.

Ya know, I always wondered who sang the theme to this show. The fellow undoubtedly did many other themes... Heathcliffe, Pole Position, Saturday Supercade.... it's all the same guy. Anyone know his name?? I can't seem to find out exactly who it is.

Altogether, and for all of those reasons, THE GET ALONG GANG has a special place in this writer's heart and I'm delighted to see it being re-released.

Thank you for chiming in!

You don't know how difficult it was resisting the urge to nag you silly into joining in! Thankyou for making that unnecessary and for casting some much needed light on times and places and events that, perhaps, were in danger of becoming lost in time.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells.

Thank you, but I should be the one thanking you, FiveofSeven. As I've often said in other threads, "writers, directors, producers and actors are nothing without fans." And, as many know, I enjoy constructive criticism about my work as much as I do praise -- and heaven knows I've had plenty of 'constructive criticism' on the board about NA over the years! So being involved in a small way in this kind of threat is a particular pleasure for me.

NA aside, THE GET ALONG GANG was one of those can't-miss shows that come along every once in a while. It was a joy to work on and it was a joy to know that I was helping to entertain the precious young children I have always felt are our world's most wonderful resource. I'm so pleased to see it being re-released.

Thank you for starting the thread and for welcoming me to it.

Originally Posted by FiveOfSeven

Heeeere's Olesker! wrote

Code:

Altogether, and for all of those reasons, THE GET ALONG GANG has a special place in this writer's heart and I'm delighted to see it being re-released.

Thank you for chiming in!

You don't know how difficult it was resisting the urge to nag you silly into joining in! Thankyou for making that unnecessary and for casting some much needed light on times and places and events that, perhaps, were in danger of becoming lost in time.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that although adjectives such as kind, gentle, sweet, et al, certainly apply to the show in question, the animators and writers were wise enough to include the occasional little treat for those of us who also count the likes of Tom and Jerry among their favourite cartoons.

Too many shows of this type tended to treat their animated cast as if they were made of Waterford Crystal. Not this one. Although the more extreme, sadistic forms of cartoon violence are absent, there were isolated scenes of characters being stretched like rubber, squeezed through impossibly narrow gaps, bug-splatting against a rock face and even in one episode, flattened into a cardboard standee of itself! This from an age where, supposedly, over cautious studio execs, over zealous "Standards and Practices" departments and over-intrusive parent pressure groups were said to be the bane of cartoon writers and animators lives!

Originally Posted by Heeeere's Olesker!

NA aside, THE GET ALONG GANG was one of those can't-miss shows that come along every once in a while. It was a joy to work on and it was a joy to know that I was helping to entertain the precious young children I have always felt are our world's most wonderful resource. I'm so pleased to see it being re-released.

Thank you for starting the thread and for welcoming me to it.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells.

You're right and that came at least partially from leadership. Jean Chalopin, who at the time of The Get Along Gang, was DIC's co-owner with Andy Heyward, used to say "Television is a business...but who says we can't have fun?" He encouraged the DIC writers to have fun with the scripts and we did that and were grateful to him for so encouraging us because it was fun. It's heartening, indeed, to know it was fun for viewers.

Regarding Standards & Practices departments, I have to say that I personally had very little trouble with them, and I wrote for numerous network series and I often pushed the envelope a bit. I recall there was one time they had a problem because I had a matchbook in a Littles episode -- a bit picky, I thought, but I got the point.

I believe the parental pressure group you're referring to is Action for Children's Television, at the time headed by the very vocal Peggy Charren. While Charren opposed violence in children's television on the grounds that it gives the message that violence is the way to solve problems, she took an unfair hit as being in favor of censorship. In fact, she was strongly opposed to censorship, once saying "...you can't say that there shouldn't be any violence on television. It is the context that is really important. Too often, children are the excuse for banning speech: words and pictures in comic books, movies, classic stories, textbooks and television. But government censorship is not the way to protect children from inappropriate content."

While Charren and her group loudly protested, Charren disbanded the group in 1991 suggesting that it had accomplished what it had been formed for...ironically just two years before MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS premiered.

I get and agree with the fact that television needs to be age-appropriate. There are certainly shows I won't let my five-year old watch. The other side of that coin is that I grew up watching coyotes have anvils landing on them and Stooges getting hit on the head with hammers and neither I nor any of my friends grew up to be serial killers. Still, Charren had a point and I think the most important point is that television needs to be appropriate for the age of the viewers. Exactly what is inappropriate is difficult to define in words, but I think most parents know what is inappropriate when they see it.

I'll end by saying that I've known a lot of children's television writers in my three decades in the business and I will categorically say that every last one of them realized we were having an influence on young impressionable minds and took that responsibility very seriously, trying to present pro-social thinking even when our series pitted villains against the good guys. Perhaps that is one of the major reasons why the 80s were considered The Golden Age of Animation.

Originally Posted by FiveOfSeven

It's perhaps worth pointing out that although adjectives such as kind, gentle, sweet, et al, certainly apply to the show in question, the animators and writers were wise enough to include the occasional little treat for those of us who also count the likes of Tom and Jerry among their favourite cartoons.

Too many shows of this type tended to treat their animated cast as if they were made of Waterford Crystal. Not this one. Although the more extreme, sadistic forms of cartoon violence are absent, there were isolated scenes of characters being stretched like rubber, squeezed through impossibly narrow gaps, bug-splatting against a rock face and even in one episode, flattened into a cardboard standee of itself! This from an age where, supposedly, over cautious studio execs, over zealous "Standards and Practices" departments and over-intrusive parent pressure groups were said to be the bane of cartoon writers and animators lives!

It might be an unpopular opininion to have but I agree that A.C.T. and Peggy Charren have, far too often, been unfairly accused of having some sort of grudge against thrills, spills and laughter and of wanting to turn t.v. in general and children's t.v. in particular into the electronic equivalent of tofu.

In hindsight they seem to have been one of the more rational campaign groups of that type but that hasn't stopped the hard of thinking in some circles from unjustly lumping them with other, genuinely flaky "Moral Guardians". (With whom they were sometimes at loggerheads.)

[QUOTE=I believe the parental pressure group you're referring to is Action for Children's Television, at the time headed by the very vocal Peggy Charren. While Charren opposed violence in children's television on the grounds that it gives the message that violence is the way to solve problems, she took an unfair hit as being in favor of censorship. In fact, she was strongly opposed to censorship, once saying "...you can't say that there shouldn't be any violence on television. It is the context that is really important. Too often, children are the excuse for banning speech: words and pictures in comic books, movies, classic stories, textbooks and television. But government censorship is not the way to protect children from inappropriate content."

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is a pity because this week the National Association of Beholders wrote to tell me that I've got a face like a rucksack full of dented bells.